Google, WhatsApp and Snowden back Apple against FBI

Tech giants issue messages in support of CEO Tim Cook challenging court order to help break into San Bernardino killer’s phone

Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, has claimed that the FBI wants his company to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing security features.
Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Now Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has given the stance his backing. “Important post by @tim_cook. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy,” wrote Google’s boss, as part of a short series of tweets addressing the issue.

“We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism. We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders. But that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent.”

Pichai added that he was “looking forward to a thoughtful and open discussion on this important issue”.

Their views reflect those of Tim Cook in his letter to customers, which accused the FBI of requesting that Apple “build a backdoor to the iPhone” for use by government and law enforcement agencies.

“Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation,” wrote Cook.

He claimed that “in the wrong hands” this software could be used to unlock “any iPhone in someone’s physical possession”, and warned that Apple would not be able to guarantee that the software would only be used by the FBI in this case.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has also backed Apple, tweeting that the company’s stance was defending the rights of its customers.

“Apple – this is one case and this is a case that certainly we should be able to get into the phone. And we should find out what happened, why it happened, and maybe there’s other people involved. And we have to do that.”

US senator Tom Cotton went further. “The problem of end-to-end encryption isn’t just a terrorism issue. It is also a drug-trafficking, kidnapping and child pornography issue that impacts every state of the Union,” he said in a statement.

“It’s unfortunate that the great company Apple is becoming the company of choice for terrorists, drug dealers and sexual predators of all sorts.”

In the UK, the uncle of Fusilier Lee Rigby, who was murdered in London in 2013 by two Islamic extremists, said Apple was “protecting a murderer’s privacy at the cost of public safety”.

“Valuable evidence is on that smartphone and Apple is denying the FBI access to that information,” Ray McClure told the BBC.

“If a court issued a warrant in the UK or United States to search somebody’s house, you wouldn’t stop them, you would allow them in - why should a smartphone be any different?” said McClure.

“If Mr Cook has no sympathy for terrorists, why is he stopping the FBI accessing those phone records?”